“Drakai,” I admit, the truth of it and the lie it has become coating mytongue in a thick film of bitterness.
Nix rises from where he is crouched before me, huffing an incredulous laugh. “A feyn Drakai?” His eyebrows lift disbelievingly. “Such a thing does not exist on Terr.”
Feyn.
I find my palm rubbing my sternum absently, unbidden. As if it might soothe an unknown ache lingering beneath the surface of my skin. The male remaining next to Vos looks at me from beneath furrowed brows, his eyes tracking the hand at my chest.
“Mated? Perhaps she is just a feyn.” The last he directs at Vos as she steps forward to observe me more closely.
I grip the fabric of my gown, willing my hand to still.
Mated.
“Perhaps sheisonly feyn,” she says, the smile returning to her face. “But mated she most certainly is. Arda, why don’t you go and see if the captain needs any assistance.”
The male by her side pales, his jaw tense as he departs from the room.
“He’s never had a stomach for these things,” Vos explains, but it is the excitement adorning Nix’s face that chills me when he unlocks the door to my cell.
There is no hesitation when he steps in front of me. One large hand fisting my curls, he lifts me until I meet his eyes, my toes sweeping against the deck in a futile effort to find footing. My hands clasp around his wrist, pulling to free myself. But he only laughs as I struggle, his grip like soldered iron.
“I could ask,” Vos says as she slides into the cell, “What you are. The name of the mate I will rend from your bond just as you have done to mine.” She glides in front of me, a smug smile on her lips. “But even if you tell me everything I want to know, you owe me a debt of pain, a debt I will spend the rest of your long life collecting.”
It’s the only warning she gives, before revealing the jagged blade she conceals at her side as she places it against my ribs and begins to carve.
The scream tears at the tender flesh of my throat as the blade finds its home near my spine. Piercing the skin at my back until it drags upon the rib beneath, severing tendon and nerve as it flays the flesh open wide. Vos takes her time, slowly slicing through the muscles. Each fiber on fire as the sinew slowly separates, her knife working its way around to the flesh of my side.
My head tips back as the last of my strength leaves me. Nix eyes the exposed flesh of my throat, his fangs protruding wantonly.
“Show me your true form,” Vos says, the same demand she has issued after each of the five ribs now boasting the bloody evidence of her attention.
But my arms are slack at my sides, weary from struggling through the four attempts she delivered to my side before. My body is heavy with a mixture of hot and cooling blood, drying to cake against my skin, and my mind is hazy, unable to form the words I offered at the beginning.
I can’t.
When the iron of Nix’s hand finally releases its hold on me, I smack against the floor in a nauseating puddle of my own blood and vomit.
I’m vaguely aware of footsteps when Vos’s voice comes from the other side of the small space. “Leave her, brother, she is too fragile to continue in this form.”
His stride is too reluctant when he departs. I shudder to think about how far the male might have persisted if not for his sister. For the first time since I woke aboard the ship, I feel relieved, listening to their steps as they leave the dark room.
There is nothing to stop the slow trickle of blood as it leaks from my ribs. I can’t help but think that this is a better end than what I might have endured at their hands if my body were made of something stronger. I’m hardly aware of the door when it opens again, or the patter of nimble feet when they venture into the growing pool of my blood.
A petite female kneels by my head. The tips of her long swath of white hair soak up the deep crimson on the floor, the fabric of her snow-whitedress doing the same.
She glances toward the door and a larger part of myself than I’d like to admit suffers an excruciating loss when she slides the feynstone ring from my finger and into her pocket. Her hands wrap about my torso and a blinding pain courses through my body the next moment.
I loose a scream straight from the depths of haliel. The familiar agony of healing melds with the terror that rises within me when I see clearly the vision Vos has for my future. I have no doubt that once I am healed, the torture will begin again. A cycle that will repeat until she is satisfied that I have endured a punishment she deems worthy of the male I’ve stripped from her life.
I grasp the healer’s wrists in fury as much as in fear, the demon that lives within me roiling in rebellion of the female’s gift. Death. I choose death over the life they have in store for me.
“No!” I scream, my voice rasping and shrill even as her gift attempts to mend it.
Small as she is, her brow pitches down in terrifying determination as she presses her weight against my chest, forcing her gift into me. I grit my teeth, glaring at the healer. The boat creaks and groans as it shudders beneath us. I’m only vaguely aware of the alarmed shouts that rise overhead.
“Stop it,” the female hisses, her forehead beading with sweat, as she glances behind her.
I suppress a sob when the door slams against the interior of the room, Nix ducking beneath the doorway as he enters. The healer parts from me. The ship ceases its turbulent rumble, as she rushes to stand before him, head bowed.
